Google's PAC posts big uptick

Google is ramping up its campaign machine ahead of the 2012 election, raking in $570,000 for its political action committee in the first six months of the year — the most it has raised in a single cycle since its PAC opened shop.

The search giant’s midyear report, filed July 29, shows Google has already brought in more in the first half of 2011 than over the course of the entire 2010 cycle. The amount dwarfs what the company raised during the 2006 and 2008 cycles combined.

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So far, Google has donated only $60,000 from its expanded campaign war chest. That may be a meager sum compared to its tech and telecom competitors, but it is still early in the 2012 election cycle.

And all signs point to Google continuing to refine its campaign operations as the election season accelerates.

"A strong PAC enables us to support candidates who share our positions on the issues that are most important to us like encouraging innovation and creating economic opportunity,” a representative told POLITICO of Google’s uptick in activity.

A larger coffer for campaign contributions should embolden Google as it seeks to play an even more aggressive role this year in Washington, where regulators have dialed up scrutiny of the Mountain View, Calif.-based company and its business practices.

Google’s business is somewhat tied to congressional debates over online privacy, patents and intellectual property, to name a few issues. And the search giant faces additional attention on and off Capitol Hill for its burgeoning search business — a topic that has prompted the FTC to commence an antitrust probe.

For its part, Google has signaled it has no intentions of remaining a passive observer in any of those fights. The company recently responded to the Beltway’s heightened antitrust scrutiny by hiring 12 new outside lobbying firms with deep connections to all branches of government. It also spent more than $2 million last quarter — more than rival Microsoft, for the first time — to talk up its issues around Washington.

And Google’s bigger 2011 haul could allow it to wage a more aggressive war with its PAC, too.

For now, the roughly $60,000 Google has written in campaign checks reflect contributions to party leaders as well as key decision makers on tech- and telecom-focused congressional committees.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and House telecom panel chief Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) all saw Google cash in the first six months of 2011, according to the new filing.

Of course, Google isn’t the only PAC raking in cash this year: Microsoft, for one, has already spent more than $666,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And AT&T, one of the most robust campaign operations across industries, has shelled out well over $1 million this year, the center’s data reports.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 12:12 p.m. on August 1, 2011.